Maintain True, Sing New: To the Subsequent President of Our Faculty

My cost to you, Brian Tabb, because the third president of Bethlehem School and Seminary, could also be spoken in a rhyming couplet with iambic tetrameter. It goes like this:

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true;
Let perception, pleasure, and tune be new.

Maintain Quick the Phrase

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true. Be like those that acquired the phrase in good soil: “Maintain it quick in an trustworthy and good coronary heart, and bear fruit with endurance” (Luke 8:15).

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true. Be a agency and steadfast lover of the gospel: “I might remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you acquired, through which you stand, and by which you might be being saved, should you maintain quick to the phrase” (1 Corinthians 15:1–2).

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true. Be a guardian of the apostolic traditions: “Stand agency and maintain quick to the traditions that you simply had been taught by us, both by our spoken phrase or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true. Be dogged in holding our confession: “Since we have now an incredible excessive priest who has handed by the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, allow us to maintain quick our confession” (Hebrews 4:14).

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true. And be obedient to the risen Jesus when he says in Revelation 2:25, “Solely maintain quick what you have got till I come.”

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true. You’re our chief, our pacesetter, our instance, our ethos builder, our inspiration, and our reality protector. Maintain quick to the inerrant phrase, for “the phrases of the Lord are pure phrases, like silver refined in a furnace on the bottom, purified seven instances” (Psalm 12:6). And Scripture can’t be damaged (John 10:35). “Extra to be desired are they than gold, even a lot advantageous gold; sweeter additionally than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10). Maintain quick to the inerrant phrase.

Maintain quick to Reformed soteriology — that’s, the unchanged reality that our nice salvation is a decisive work of God, begin to end. He selected, he predestined, he died, he rose, he bore our sin, he took condemnation, he calls, he causes new start, he provides saving religion, he forgives, he adopts, he guards and sustains and retains, he sanctifies, he perfects and brings us to God the place there may be fullness of pleasure and pleasures forevermore. And no matter contributions we make within the obedience of religion, it’s not we however the grace of God working in us what is agreeable in his sight, in order that our salvation — from eternity to eternity, from begin to end — redounds to the glory of his sovereign grace. Maintain quick to the infinitely valuable Reformed, biblical soteriology.

“Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true; let perception, pleasure, and tune be new.”

Maintain quick to the fullest glorification of God by the enjoyment of God’s individuals in God. Maintain quick to Christian Hedonism — by no matter title. Maintain quick to the intense pleasure that God is most glorified in us after we are most glad in him — or as Paul expressed it: “I’ll boast all of the extra gladly of my weaknesses, so that the facility of Christ could relaxation upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Maintain quick to the reality that gladness in Christ in weak spot magnifies the glory of Christ.

Maintain quick to the fantastic thing about biblical manhood and womanhood as God created them and orders them in complementary relationships. Maintain quick to marriage as a lifelong covenant union between a person and a girl, with the person taking his cues from Christ as the top of his spouse, and the girl taking her cues from the trustworthy, submissive, beloved physique of Christ, the church. Maintain quick to the burden that males should bear as these chargeable for the pastoral management of the church. Maintain quick to the reality that God has spoken in Scripture and in nature that males are males all the way in which down and ladies are ladies all the way in which down, and this can be a godly, glad, and superb factor.

Maintain quick to all of them, Brian Tabb — all the dear realities of our Affirmation of Religion.

Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true.

Let Music Be New

And in all of your regular, stable, secure, unflinching, unchanging holding quick to what’s true, let perception, pleasure, and tune be new.

Oh sing to the Lord a new tune; sing to the Lord, all of the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his title; inform of his salvation from each day. Declare his glory among the many nations, his marvelous works amongst all of the peoples! For excellent is the Lord, and tremendously [freshly, newly!] to be praised. (Psalm 96:1–4)

When the psalmist stated, “Sing to the Lord a brand new tune,” he didn’t imply, “Write a brand new Bible, discover some new doctrine, bow to a brand new Lord, bless a brand new title, inform of a distinct salvation, reward a novel glory, or be amazed at a greatness that by no means existed earlier than.” That’s not what he meant.

He meant, “Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true, however by all means, let perception, pleasure, and tune be new.”

You might have an incredible school within the college. They usually have amazingly gifted eyes to hunt and discover treasures within the Bible — “the phrase, unchanged and true.” The phrase of God — and the world of God — is like an ocean of perception with out backside and with out shore. Encourage these academics. Problem them, equip them, and pay them to see what is de facto there — insights they could by no means have seen earlier than — in order that they could prepare the scholars to do the identical. “Each scribe [and these are worthy scribes] who has been educated for the dominion of heaven is sort of a grasp of a home, who brings out of his treasure [his bottomless ocean] what’s new and what’s previous” (Matthew 13:52). Outdated reality, new perception.

Let perception, pleasure, and tune be new. Let pleasure be new. “Weeping could tarry for the night time, however pleasure comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Sure, there’s a critical pleasure that endures by the night time of weeping: “Sorrowful, but at all times rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). However daybreak shouldn’t be darkness. Dancing shouldn’t be weeping. Start shouldn’t be dying. And the enjoyment of the bridegroom popping out of his chamber at dawn shouldn’t be the identical pleasure as the enjoyment of the previous man grateful for sixty years of marriage, standing by his spouse’s grave. They’re all completely different. Each pleasure is completely different. The mercies are new each morning; the thrill are new each morning — and each night time.

Brian, know this, savor this, reside this, and pray this till training in critical pleasure on this college is new each morning.

Let perception, pleasure, and tune be new. If our president, our school, and our college students are discovering new insights within the ocean of God’s unchanging reality, and if we’re tasting new joys each morning, we are going to sing new songs. And we are going to sing previous songs like we’ve by no means sung them earlier than.

So, I wrote a brand new tune for you, Brian, which I would love our congregation to sing over you. (It’s to the tune of “All Individuals That on Earth Do Dwell.”)

God’s Fact stands like his holy Title,
     No origin, nor e’er turned,
Everlasting, absolute, the identical,
     Ceaselessly one in sum and purpose.

But oh how new and recent the style!
     Linger with him and make no haste.
By way of each line the candy is traced;
     Might we endlessly so be graced.

Come each scholar, poet too;
     Maintain historical reality and bliss in view.
Maintain quick the phrase, unchanged and true;
     Let perception, pleasure, and tune be new.

Amen.